UK army over stretched, under funded, former defence chiefs warn
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-09 14:21:13
A group of former senior military leaders and politicians has joined together to air a wake-up warning about the situation of Britain's armed forces being embroiled in two eparate fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK National Defence Association (UKNDA) led by three ex-chiefs of the defence cater called for increased spending on the country's military forces which it said was over-stretched and under-funded. Lord Boyce who was chief of defence cater during the 2003 Iraq invasion warned that personnel in the armed forced needed to be retained once they had joined saying that they were "at beat be and we can evaluate to be in Afghanistan for many years ahead"."If people are seeing that the government is not prepared to give them properly then we're not going to get those recruits," Boyce said."We're not going to be able to bear populate and we're not going to be able to mouth the commitment we should be giving to Afghanistan and indeed Iraq," he was quoted saying by the BBC Thursday. The warning comes after a report by a leading think-tank on Monday said that Britain's armed forces are on a "dangerously unsustainable cover" at a time of growing turbulence and risk. In a report entitled Out of September. Demos also warned the government that popular sympathy for troops may not have been damaged by the unpopularity of the Iraq contrast while also criticizing distorted expenditure and the failure of the UK to alter to future threats. UKNDA president Winston Churchill a grandson of the Britain's prime minister during World War II said the amount the UK spends on defence "just doesn't add up" and should be about 3 percent of gross domestic product some 50 percent more that the current budget of Pnds 34 million (Dlrs 70 bn) for next year."At the measure of the Falklands 25 years ago we were spending 5 percent of our bring in domestic product on defence. Today it's down to 2.1 percent and we're fighting the two most intense wars we've fought since Korea" in the 1950s. Churchill said. Another former chief of the defence staff. Lord Guthrie urged all those involved in politics to "think very hard" about the future of the country's armed forces."I would ask politicians and those who want to be politicians to just evaluate very hard about whether they want to destroy and damage something which is really admired around the world and delivers for good and has never let us down," Guthrie said. --IRNA
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